When did we become such a police state?

Moral police: check

Fashion police: check 

Food police: check

Art police: check

Thought police: check

Gau police: check 

Patriotism police: check

Police that solves actual crimes: LOL

Police to protect the common man: ROFL

Police for crimes against women: LMFAO

The many crimes of America

 

I'm wondering when the world will demand answers from the US govt & coalitionists for all the harm they've done the world. Since WW2, the US govt has poked its nose in several conflicts around the world: 

Korea 1950

Lebanon 1958

Cuba 1961

Dominican Republic 1965

Vietnam 1965

Lebanon 1982

Grenada 1983

Panama 1989

Gulf War 1990

Bosnia 1994

Kosovo 1998

Afghanistan 2001

Iraq 2003

Libya 2011

People don't want wars, but the State is always striving for it with an imperialist agenda. Who is the US govt answerable to? Perhaps no one. Don't think the problem is going to go away on its own. Maybe a redrawing of the borders looks imminent.

No matter, never mind

A criticism of scientific knowledge is necessary when we see it being peddled as an absolutist source of knowledge. It's amusing that the same folks who worship at the altar of reason, rationale and logic, abandon it when it comes to 'belief' in science, or its currently popular avatar, scientism. 

This is more common than is understood, and while not a critique of the scientific method itself, is an attempt to understand why we believe what we believe. Using metaphysics to critique physics is as old as ancient philosophy, but there are merits to recognising the limits of this particular methodology.  

Let's take materialism, the theory in vogue about reality, or the belief that the gamut of knowable phenomena is exhausted by matter and energy, and that scientific knowledge occupies the pivotal position epistemologically. That only matter, energy, and matter-energy relations exist. Even if it seems futile to point out the obvious error in pre-supposing and mentioning 'relations' in a framework that fundamentally tries to do away with it, there are other salient features of this creed that raises philosophical brows. 

At the outset, materialism crumbles by the might of its own supposition: that scientific knowledge is the only true knowledge. Because it is a metaphysical statement that cannot be verified by performing any scientific experiment.  

Having reached this dead-end, the materialist might jump to provide real-life examples of why his theory is valid. So let's apply it to examine the most commonly accessible phenomenon known to man: consciousness. Here too, we will find that a materialist would be in deep waters. A materialist would tend to agree that the mind and body are one and the same thing. So far so good. The split between the mind and body was a false dichotomy that persisted for centuries since Descartes' intuitive concept of Cartesian dualism in the 17th century. The idea that the mental and the physical occupy different ontological planes is a deeply held belief for many even today, especially the religious nuts.   

The problem really starts when the materialist tries to account for consciousness by looking for it in the brain. Till date, there has been no coherent principle or theory in neuroscience that shows how consciousness resides within the brain. Here, a materialist's best defence really is: "we don't know where consciousness comes from but we know for sure that without a physical brain, there wouldn't be any consciousness." There is no arguing with that either. The sensible rebuttal to that is: while a brain is necessary for consciousness, it is not sufficient. 

For empirical evidence a materialist will point to brain scans that purport to show that anything we call consciousness is just certain "activity" or neuronal firing in select areas of the brain. In other words, the thought/emotion/intention/belief we experience is simply neuronal firing (unless they're an eliminative materialist, in which case they'd say thoughts/emotions/intentions don't exist). 

The problem with this concept becomes clear with an analogy: imagine seeing footprints left behind by a walker on the beach. The act of walking precedes the footprint appearing on the sand, logically and temporally. Just like claiming that the footprint caused the walking would be preposterous, so it is with claims that identify neuronal activity with consciousness. The evidence of a tsunami — debris, floods, destruction — is not the tsunami itself. Here, the materialist commits the fundamental yet cardinal fallacy of mistaking the effect for the cause.  

 
There are other issues too. What do we make of mathematics in the light of all this? Our materialist has two options. Either mathematics is a feature of the world, or it is a feature of the mind. We can't really say it's a property of the universe because, it would seem this 'property' has been ascribed to it. And secondly, many, many fields of mathematics describe things that don't represent anything even remotely familiar in the known world. Complexity theory, the Mandelbrot set, value of Pi. A perfect circle with the ratio of circumference does not exist in the real world. There are more irrational numbers than rational ones. Scientists deal with imaginary numbers all the time. So where does mathematics come from? From Plato to Penrose, there are many who do not rule out a Platonic realm from where we access these truths.

The second option then, is, that mathematics is all in the mind.

Why neuroscientists of the materialist stripe swallow this is obvious. For anyone who believes that matter and energy are all that's there, this is a textbook case of applying the Occam's razor. If mathematics depends on the mind, and if you put them in the same ontological category, it would seem that mathematics would not exist outside of the mind. But we know, and it is indeed possible to deduce, that mathematical truths exist independent of the mind. The matter-hatters commit a mindless blunder when they reduce mind to matter. 

Moreover, explaining our thoughts, intentionality, meaning, and qualia — the qualitative experience of sensoria— as a purely physical property will lead to circular reasoning. Applying reductio ad absurdum, let's say all our thoughts, desires, intentions, beliefs and feelings are a result of complex neuronal firings and hormonal sloshings. If this be the case, why would you trust it, since belief JUST IS another firing of the neurons and how on earth is it supposed to mean anything? For if our beliefs are just brain-states or an electro-chemical property of the brain, then even the 'belief' that beliefs are brain-states is another brain-state. One would be hard pressed to infer a truth value from a brain-state. Do the ripples in the lake have truth value? Then how do ripples in a mass of wrinkled tissue manage to do? That's what this quest is all about actually.

If brain-states have any truth value, it would seem that truths originate in the brain, corresponding to a particular state. In that case, mathematical truths would have no independent existence without the brain. If the naturalist, or materialist, holds that mathematical truths are independent of the brain, is there a mathematical realm where they exist, beyond the physical world? If so, why shouldn't there be necessary truths that transcend the physical world? If these truths can be accessed by the mind, there exist in the mind certain truths that have a non-physical origin.

The materialist is then forced to concede that meanings and beliefs are an illusion. And if one wants to take the easy way out, it is better to leave it at this. It's all an illusion. The emergent self with its attendant universe of thoughts, feelings, intentions, and QUALITATIVE EXPERIENCE, is all one big deception. 

I could go on to the next wench in the materialist conception of consciousness by invoking the problem of intentionality, or the idea that the mind is able to direct itself to something that is outside of itself. Like any thought that is not self-referential — that cup of chai, your pet dog, girlfriend, the weather, book, anything really. But it is completely unnecessary at this point. When we cannot physically account for consciousness emerging from the brain, what is the point of splitting hairs about one particular property of consciousness among the millions. 

Lastly, the materialist mind cannot account for QUALIA, the REDNESS of the colour red, and the FEELING of pain. Forget consciousness, we don't even know why we experience pain. Or rather, we have been unable to find a physical basis for pain. Don't get me wrong, there is a physicality to pain of course. The firing of the C-fibres in the nervous system shows up in scans when we experience pain, but that is only the footprint left behind and not the thing in itself. What is the colour of red? Is it just the 'qualitative sensoria' we experience when subjected to electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength (700 nm)? It is true that colour as such does not exist outside of the brain. 

If you really think about it, asking if the universe follows a universal colour palette that is the same for everyone is simply a variation of that trick question about trees falling in the forest. 

Ga*^$)*&gaa^&^

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Dear Mr Halwai

The Proprieter

Jagannath Sweets

31/5 Church Road

Jangpura

Sir

Even as you’re thinking hard about the identity of the strange, derelict fellow with a wispy beard who dropped off this letter at your esteemed sweetshop, dare I suggest you drop the idea immediately? Because the very fact that you’re reading this letter means you’re not going to see my face ever again. Don’t be mistaken. This is not a complaint, nor is it a letter of accusation. I’m simply going to apprise you of the sticky situation I found myself in, after having consumed a bowl of your famous, piping hot gulabjamuns. No pun intended here. Now I’m a big fan of gulabjamuns and consider it one of the best remedies for a certain condition, which we in the circle call “munchies”. And when beset with the said condition, it is not possible to follow social convention while having the jamuns, or anything sweet for that matter.

So there I was, stuffing my mouth with the jamuns at a rate faster than I could swallow, mouth dripping with the sugary syrup and mind completely oblivious to a million stares. Now despite the desperation on my part at wolfing down the jamuns, I realized a little later that I was not provided with tissue papers. And then, owing to the enhanced state I was in, it occurred to me that there’s never been a time at your sweetshop that I’ve received tissues with the gulabjamuns; or for that matter with any other food item that requires a ceremonial wipe of the hand.

After pondering over the situation awhile, I was forced to bring the matter to the man behind the counter. On being asked for tissues, the man simply pointed my nose to the corner of the shop where they wash the utensils, probably signaling me to wash my hands there. But to my utter horror, I saw utensils in all shapes and sizes, including those similar to the one I’d freshly had my gulabjamuns from, swimming in water the colour (and consistency) of sewerage. Such visual assault was too much for me. After gathering my bearings, and in a bid to save my olfactory senses from a similar assault, I quickly ran out. But in the process, I forgot that my fingers were still stained and sticky with the syrup from the gulabjamuns.

So far so good. All I had to do was go back to my place and wipe my hands clean. But imagine my plight, of all times, I bump into the (extremely attractive) amorous interest of mine from the neighbourhood at this hour.

Now not wanting to waste your time, allow me to skip the details and fast forward to the situation that brought me the immeasurable agony. Sitting on my bed, little knowing that my sticky hands had gathered a lot of dirt and grime while on our way back to my room, I was horrified to find it all imprinted on the lady's lovely white shirt, when we tried to take it off. 

Plus, by now I also noticed some dead flies, or what remained of them, sticking to my palms. All of this happened so suddenly and it was yet to sink in, when the damsel whose dress I’d just desecrated got up abruptly and gave me an earful about hygiene. My protests, excuses and pleading fell on deaf ears, and quite validly so, for which distinguished-looking lady would entrust herself to someone who couldn’t maintain the most basic decorum of cleanliness?

Needless to say, I was left shame-faced and with an extremely disturbed psychology; not to mention deprived of some steaming hot “action”. Which is also why this letter has made its way into your hands.

Now I cannot overstress the fact that your gulabjamuns and my plight do share a causal connection, as that much is more than evident. Sure, it was a chain of events that led to the disaster, but one can trace the root cause of all this trouble to a lack of tissues at your sweetshop. Therefore, I felt the need to alert you to this glaring slip-up and urge you to take appropriate steps in ensuring an abundant supply of tissues for all your valuable patrons. God forbid anyone should meet the ill-fate I’d befallen.

Yours persistently

SgtPauper

Thick Headed Captain

He told me his head was once bitten by a camel. Not bitten off, but bitten into. He even showed me the spot, which was actually a scar hiding under a film of gruffly hair. He said he and his siter had been taken captives by the Pakistani army, at the Rajasthan border, and imprisoned for about two months. The first few weeks, there was no food. And it would get nauseatingly hot. So hot, that the tar would melt from the road and ooze on to the sides.
He had scraped some of the tar and eaten it. Which made his stomach swell. It was so bad, he said he'd rather watch his sister die than give her some of that road pulp.
They asked him several questions, but he had no clue how they ended up in this place. He mumbled something about being sedated by a cattle trader. Then they started using the terror tactics.
His sister was brought in front of the camel, to be trampled underfoot, in front of his very own eyes. It was while trying to save her that the camel bit him.

I asked him what happened to the sister. He looked unperturbed, much like someone who's gone off the rocker and doesn't realise what he's lost, or what he's been through. He only knows events that brought him to the edge of sanity. Not a moment's worth of recollection more. And the camel bite was probably when he'd lost his sanity. From then on, he'd started regressing. His voice became that of a crackled teenager's. Or, according to some rumour, he'd had his bollocks removed out of spite just because his father didn't let him marry the girl he loved.
But even though he was regressing back to childhood, his features were increasingly getting older. He wore the expression of a 40-year-old man, even though he was only 29 at the time. With callouses on his palms, saltnpepper beard and scaly, bunion infested feet, he reminded me of a caricature uncle. Someone who amused kids to bits, and was naive enough to earn the trust of the ever suspicious parents.

He'd announce his arrival from hundreds of yards away. There was a peculiar way he held the side of his palm to his mouth and let out this carnivalesque horn. No one could produce that sound. It was louder than a truck siren, and longer than a train horn. It began from a low note, a rumble that'd climb till you could hear the vocal chords vibrating furiously with the soft flesh of the hand. That siren was another reason he was popular with the kids.
I can think of one more reason. He could eat any amount of chilli. And I’m not talking about heavily spiced food. He could eat, bite into and chew the hottest chilli in the world like it was a beanstring. And boasting about it almost always worked as an ice-breaker with the kids. He’d recount triumphant tales of when such and such person challenged him into eating a teaspoonful of red chilli powder. And he’d taken one teaspoon, polished it clean and then scooped another heap into his mouth, like it was milk powder.
And when you prodded him enough, he’d say there was no secret or trick to it. “I was born in a chilli”, he’d laugh maniacally. He’d then proceed to explain the obsession had caught on much early. From childhood, he’d started eating green chillis with a dash of salt. And soon it was just chillis. It never caused any awful reaction in his system. Ever.

He worked at a solar observatory. It was the only one in the country, he'd boast. And it was situated in the middle of a lake. So kids would go absolutely nuts about the journey to his office, which had to be undertaken in a boat. The observatory was a cylindrical building with a rotating dome at the top. The first time I entered it, the dome rotated a couple of degrees, at which point the pigeons nestling there took flight. That gave me a sudden jolt. And he laughed, wickedly. In fact, he found it so amusing that he came back and recounted the tale with sadistic pleasure to my mum.
"He was calm throughout the boat ride, you know, but you should have seen the look on his face when the telescope moved!!" he'd cry with a rasp, hoarse, maniacal laugh.

But there were certain things even his affected mind knew would be anathema to talk about. Like how I had almost died the day I went with him to his office in the lake. The disaster that had been averted just in time. Apparently, while getting off the boat, I'd calmly stepped into the water, thinking it was the dock. The water was some 30 feet deep there, and I fell with an unceremonious splash. He jumped in to save me. He was always saving people and getting into trouble. But thankfully though this time, the moor and the rope were right next to us. And he'd had the good sense to grab it right before jumping in. We never mentioned the incident to anyone.
I spent the afternoon sitting in the lawns of the observatory, warming my body and drying my clothes. I hated it. I'd been pretty desperate to check out the observatory, peer through the gigantic telescope and see the spots on the sun. Now I had to content myself with only soaking it up.

After taking a mighty swig from the jug full of chai, he asked me whether I could join him for buying some poultry. A chicken farm, he promised me would be exciting.
We cycled off to the farm. And he showed me how the hens were kept inside the coop, and their feed sprinkled through a mechanical device. I watched the hens roosting peacefully, totally oblivious to their suitors. We were looking for the one with the right amount of flesh. Not too swollen, “because it’d taste like a potato”, he’d say. And not too skinny either. There are 5 people eating it, remember?

A moderately sized chicken was chosen, but we had to go the main entrance to get the butcher guy who’d make her ready. Before that we went exploring the farm. There some dogs lying about in the sun, watching us but not quite. He looked at me with a wild grin and said he was going to give the dog a cup of coffee. I burst out laughing. The imagery was so funny: a guy offering a cup of coffee to a dog. I was still laughing when he picked up the stone and hit me in the head. It was so sudden, and so blinding, there was hardly any pain. I could see the events unfolding, and knew it was going to hurt. But like in a dream, I just couldn't move; I didn't even want to move, and I didn't feel the pain. I really didn't. It was fun, except that I don't remember what happened next.

Masculinary Delights with Homo Chauvinistic

They say a man likes to do things alone. Being alone, they say, can make you lonely. I was alone, but not lonely. At least not quite yet. I had my choicest poison for company, and enough dope to last many weeks. 

That stuff can drive you crazy though, especially when you're alone. It can also give you epileptic cravings for anything sweet. So there I was, wanting to have a nice sweet dessert but feeling cantankerous, because that's how a scruffy man would ideally feel. Or so I thought. I skimmed through my options. I didn't want to bake a cake. Baking is for the weak. I'd rather go for frozen dessert. Frozen stiff, and a barrel of alcohol to wash it down with. 

When you're a man, you don't go shopping for ingredients. The correct word to use is hunt. For obvious reasons. But hunting for dessert ingredients? Oh no, too emasculating. I altered my plans a little. I needed to make some OTHER thing that would be a great excuse to go foraging for dessert ingredients. Pretty cool right? I was putting on the mask in masculinity :B

So I went hunting for some meat, a rather adventurous thing at this hour, considering I had very little moolah and only a cubbyhole butcher shop to buy it from. But I like hunting for meat this way. And for today's efforts, it gives a rough edge to the whole deal.

Butcher shops are ideal places to make you feel manly. Although I'm pretty sure I'd faint if I ever saw a pig being slaughtered. But for our current performance, let's go with the thought. In the deepest drawl I could muster, I asked for an under-cut piece of pork. If you're in Delhi, you'll soon realise this is a highly coveted piece. Most of the stock gets over because crony floozies from restaurants across town will flock here to handpick the best cuts early in the morning, even before the swine has bled its last drop. Luckily for me today, though, they had a piece left.

Normally I like conversing with the butcher. Man to man you know. As if. About how fresh the meat is and what different kind of cuts there are. Yada yada. Today though, he seemed amnesiac; a puzzled face that pretended to not know what he was doing. I heard him tell his assistant to not wear that shirt to work. This annoyed the life out of me. This butcher, with the enormous shoulders and beefy arms wielding a gigantic meat cleaver, was beginning to seem very soft. Not at all going with the script. I like my butchers hard-faced and stone-hearted; how else would they do justice to their jobs? Tenderness in a butcher is anathema to his profession.

I grunted at him to quickly carve me some pieces of chops. I think he got the hint. In a ruthless-but-deft stroke, he hacked the chops out, much to my heart's content. I handed him the money, in exchange for the meat. I walked out. There was a fish market up ahead. I like fish, but only the ones I've caught. Only true men catch blue fin tuna. So I gave the market a pass. Next to the fish market were these vegetable shacks. They sell fruits out there as well. I bought some peppers to go with the steak. Also some mushrooms, beans, leeks, courgettes, cherry tomatoes and chillies. Also an  avocado for a side salad. 

Finally, I was en route to buying the ingredients for the dessert, when it hit me. The smell, the aroma, odour? It was so real that I lost my bearings for a second. I'll tell you why. For in this very INA market, is a place, somewhere six feet in the air, where the smells of the fruit, vegetable, meat, and fish markets mingle, and combine to form a most potent, and rather-too-familiar scent. It was so strong it stopped me in my tracks, that musty fragrance drove me mad as I kept hovering at the stop, valiantly trying to draw in deep breaths. Passers-by must think I'd found nirvana, or a new zen breathing technique. If only they knew this was something more base and carnal. For that deep whiff was redolent of nothing but a sweet, invigorating...pussy. Exactly that. And I'm not talking about the ones playing near the fish market. 

As I stood there, nostrils aflare, for what felt like an eternity, I could discern the congerie of melodies within this master symphony: the delicate fruity citrus notes jostling with balmy fish drafts, fresh vegetable aromas wafting behind, and acrid notes of rancid meat, all of them somehow combining to create the most heady and intoxicating miasma known to man. If you've read or watched Perfume, you'll know that the most potent and alluring scents are those in which one has infused the good with the bad. Like life itself. How would you know joy without suffering, pleasure without pain, grace without guilt? 

I made a mental note of the spot, planning to bring B over and make her smell the same thing.

Back home, I marinated the pork cuts in soya sauce for half an hour. Before adding a dash of rosemary, I rubbed crushed garlic on the meat. Then proceeded to pan-sear the meat first and then the vegetables. They say when garlic and butter come together, a chef is born somewhere. I'd say when you add rosemary to the mix, all the sins a chef has committed in his lifetime are forgiven. Once the meat is seared and sizzled golden on both sides, take it out and add chopped vegetables. That's it. Stir fry and it's done. 

 
It was awesome, to say the least. Now the excuse for a male chauvinistic dessert over, I proceeded to make the real thing. Crushed some hobnob cookies to a crumble, and after adding a lavish portion of melted butter, set it in the dessert tray. Put it in the fridge, to make the base firm, and now focused on the condensed milk to make toffee out of. My Yoda diction, please pardon. Boiled it for hours, and after layering the cookie crust (now out of the fridge) with split bananas, ran the toffee solution over it. Added whipped cream and shaved chocolate flakes on top and we're ready.

Now if you wish, you can pour the vodka on top of it. It'll taste like shit, but you can have dessert like a man.

Noble Beast+Bird+Effigy

Andrew Bird's Effigy
from the album, Noble Beast

-------------------------------------

If you come to find me affable
and build a replica for me
Would the idea to you be laughable
of a pale facsimile

so will you come and burn an effigy
It should keep the flies away
And when you long to burn this effigy
It should be of the hours that slip away

Slip away

It could be you
It could be me
working the door
drinking for free

carrying on with your conspiracies
filling the room with a sense of unease
fake conversations on a nonexistent telephone
like the words of a man who spends a little too much time alone
when one has spent a little too much time alone

So will you come and burn my effigy
it should keep the flies away
if u long to burn an effigy
it should be of a man who's lost his way
slips away

it could be you
it could be me
working the door
drinking for free

carrying on with your conspiracies
filling the room with a sense of unease
fake conversations on a non-existent telephone
like the words of a man who spends a little too much time alone
when one has spent a little too much time alone

For the longest time, I wasn't even aware that I had died. I was surfing the internet on the laptop when suddenly the connection went plonk. Or so I thought.

I did everything I could to fix the problem. But it just felt like the dream when you're trying to escape or call someone for help but no part of your body moves?

I wanted to unplug the cable from the modem, but couldn't move from my chair. Bizarre, isn't it? There was only one thing to do in such an emergency situation.

Wake my roomie up. She was lying dead in her bed. Not literally, but I knew waking her up would need the resourcefulnes of a stand-up comedian or a sexual pervert.
But imagine my surprise when I found myself unable to even lift a finger to rouse her from sleep.

Was I dreaming? I couldn't fix the internet line, couldn't move from my chair. Shit, I even tried opening my mouth to say something and absolutely nothing came out. Not even a sigh.

I tried listening for some vital clues to make sense of what was going on. And then I could hear it. The deafening silence. Like outer space.

I was terrified and paranoid. Imagine a plight when you can't turn to anyone for help, no matter how hard you try, and to top it all, your senses abandon you like a gold-digger wife. This could only mean I was paralysed or some crazy shit like that.

And as I found out later, that would have been still better. I would have at least kept believing that and sat there till the roomie woke up the next afternoon and took me to the emergency. Had it not been for the sudden assault on my senses.

Out of the blue, I started seeing things in the weirdest of ways. Or to put it more clearly, I started seeing things FROM the weirdest places. I looked up, and there was an enormous growth right above my eyes. It stretched on for god knows what, a mile? And below me? An eternal abyss. If I fell from the angle I was looking down, the only way of escaping would be clinging to the cluster of thick bushy hair right under my eyes. And that was really confusing. Eyebrows under my eyes?

Anyway, I somehow managed to look up beyond the stump that was right above my eyes. Something even bigger was towering above the stump, but way above. Then I recognized it. It was my face. I couldn't have mistook the scraggly beard and the unkempt hair for anything in the world. The face I'd adored every single morning in front of the mirror. And outside while shopping in the mall, or in the office window pane. I knew what I was looking at.

But there was something horribly wrong with it. Instead of eyes, it had two very ugly orbs sticking out of the sockets. Round, but so not like my eyes.

Suddenly I knew what had happened. Someone was playing jigsaw puzzle with my anatomy. And that could mean only one thing.

I was dead.